QOOBIX IS UNIQUE AND SO ARE YOU!

Do Not Go Into Raptures For Vanity Metrics

Yes! Don’t get carried away easily for the likes and followers you get. You need some far more solid results to get to the top.

G.B. Shaw once said, “He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches.” This adage is also said to derive from Lao-Tse and it is used in many countries and languages.

The main thing here is that so many people use to pose as pundits and proffer guidelines about how to make marketing right, succeed and so forth and so on, as if they were truth itself.

You find thousands of blogs with this type of news, and all of those bloggers will incite you to blog, to use this or that tool, to employ this or that method, to practice this or that system, and you name it.

They deliver a load of information for free, because they are bleeding hearts and love all of you people and want you to succeed!

Only when their immeasurable love will spread from end to end and everybody will be happily thriving with their successful blogs and online businesses, they can solemnly announce “Mission Accomplished!”

Now, since none of us is foolish, we all know that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Whether directly or indirectly, those guys want to sell you things. Their things or those from their affiliated accounts and businesses.

Am I blaming them? No, of course. Everybody has the right to put food on the table. However, less emphasis will help them seem less pretenders. But, this is part of marketing, alas! And yet, I think many people may be offended by this hypocritical attitude. Considering people not enough intelligent is always arrogant, and a very bad approach.

C’mon, we all know you are there to sell something! As and old Greek saying goes, “You can’t hide behind your finger!”

Some write very long posts because they need you to stay on their blogs for a long time. The more you stay, the more their metrics will tell they are successful. Bounce rate and that stuff, you know?

In the end, they propose and keep proposing the same things cooked in all kinds of ways. Enjoy your meal!

They might as well get thousands of retweets, facebook shares and comments; good job! Thus, what does this prove? They are authorities! Really? Yes, really. Followers and interactions make them influencers.

To be an Authority in the Internet universe.

If I go check one of those websites of supremacists, cracked who affirm the earth is flat, and trash like that, I see many retweets, shares, reposts, and comments. Well, no surprise. Being an authority in this field does not mean being extremely intelligent, educated, or such a phenomenal mind. This field measures success according to metrics that have nothing to do with culture and science.

This is the field of Internet interaction, marketing if you will. This is the place where everything can be said and done and yet nothing is as it looks.

I personally believe that there are much more intelligent than foolish people.

One may well share a stupid post not because he or she agrees with it, but because they want to underline how many stupid ideas go around the web. Yes, one might want to share a post with friends to laugh at it, instead of showing appreciation.

To read senseless things does not make you silly, unless you are already. Yes, it’s a waste of time, but sometimes you need to crack a good laugh!

However, are these metrics what we have to look after in order to enhance our business?

All those visitors, followers, and likes are completely useless if they do not convert. In other words, vanity metrics are not enough to make you rich. Do you get it?

Now, someone is worrying over fake followers, those you buy for a handful of dimes, or perhaps for a lot of money. Fake accounts some call them. They are said to negatively influence influencers. Yes, imagine a so-called influencer with thousands of fake followers who do nothing. Will you entrust he or she with your marketing? It won’t even raise brand awareness, if you will. There are blogs and pundits delivering advice about this scabrous subject. Ridiculous, as they are unable to see that it is but one of the side effects of the same phenomenon.

Please, leave ethics out of it!

Sorry, marketers and blog people, do not make an outcry, there is no need to trouble ethics for such a trivial matter. Is selling fake followers unethical? Mmmh… Think twice dear experts, this is a slippery ground, which implies far more knowledge than simple marketing understanding. Profit and ethics do not go together. Is it ethical to tell people that they can start a blog almost for free and thrive investing a couple of hours a day? Yet, they know that only very few of them will make it, by any chance.

Am I telling that I agree with selling fake followers? No, I am not! I am just pointing out that this is mainly a practical problem, which needs to be solved at a practical level. If I sank my feet in the ethics ground, I’d risk to get stuck. Business and ethics are by no means friends. Employees make CEOs rich, never the contrary. This conveys a great deal without saying more about business morality, although legal.

Why vanity metrics are useless anyways?

Vanity metrics may make you feel good but they may well disappoint you.

When you boost your posts, or get thousands of shares, you may feel comfortable with—exactly—brand awareness! Okay, but be careful, as there is no such thing as a free lunch, right? As a consequence, if you fail to convert viewers who land at your page or leads into prospects, prospects into clients, and, if possible, clients into repeat clients, your business will soon be broke.

Thus, if you easily fall for vanity metrics you are misleading yourself. Full stop and new line, you’ve got to start all over again.

When your product is valid, is something people need, is of good quality, then marketing becomes the tool to reach your market. Certainly, this tool needs to be effective, and so you need the right tools and skills and knowledge to make it effective, it’s dead sure!

Of course, do not mistake the subject for the object; I guess you all know what I mean here. After all, we still have commercials—and sales??—for miraculous pants that shape our bodies into a work of art. Isn’t that fantastic?

Yet, once again, you don’t have to focus on followers per se, and no, neither will the likes you get make you succeed.

The metrics that count are how many people is your website, landing page, or advertisement engaging, and how many of them convert. You need conversion for selling your products and services. Be practical and effective, and never waste your time on useless things.

You may even persuade someone into advertising at your blog visited by thousands of people, with so many likes and shares but remember, skilled business people do not fall for vacuous results.

The world of blogs is more and more competitive, and so it takes time and money to succeed, no matter what they say. Sometimes even a lot of money.

Am I saying that money is all it takes to succeed? Resolutely not! I am just saying, once again, that there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

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